Tuesday, 12 February 2013

Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss

So the Republicans blinked on the “fiscal cliff!” It didn’t
take a brain surgeon to see that coming once big business let it be known that
playing around with the country’s credit rating was biting the hand that feeds
them.

Dickensian budget-slashers turned
into fawning lambs overnight when subtly warned that they might need their
coffers refilled for the 2014 mid-term elections.

A
little reminder from the Democratic National Committee that it already had a
score or more of House Republicans in their electoral cross hairs and guess
what? Unrepentant deficit warriors like South Carolina’s Rep. Mick Mulvaney
(didn’t he used to play hurling for Kilkenny?) was tripping over himself to
sound like a cuddlesome pragmatist.

Money
talks, as they say, and you know what the rest does. The Tea Party experiment
is over. Though initially useful and somewhat rustically charming, it proved
way too unaccommodating for our brave new interconnected commercial universe.

Besides,
big business belatedly realized that Barack Obama wasn’t Joe Stalin. Sure, he
upped income tax rates a hair but he only raised the far more important capital
and investment gains taxes to 20%. Now that’s change Wall Street can really
believe in!

Differentiating
the forest from the trees has never been hard in this country – just watch
where the money is. Right now it’s firmly in the hands of corporate America.
Profits have never been higher despite the fact that we’re emerging from the
severest financial downturn since the great Depression.

The good times are coming!
Everything is pointing towards a solid economic recovery. Inflation is steady,
interest rates infinitesimal, new energy fields sprouting nationwide, and holy
of holies, productivity is stratospheric while labor costs are at their relative
lowest since before World War II. Time for some real money making!

As
for you, Mr. & Ms. Wage and Salary earner, when was the last time you dared
ask for a raise? The fear of God has been well and truly put into the whole
labor force –are you really going to risk losing your job by being singled out
as a profit spoiler, especially with the world and his mother breathing down
your neck, resume in hand.

Not
to mention, that with so many lay-offs, you’ve been picking up slack all over
the joint: staying late, going the extra mile; hey, your weekends are barely
your own – and don’t you dare turn that cell phone off!

This
is the new America. Forget about collective bargaining, you’re on your own,
amigo! What’s a union anyway, a bunch of Commies that messes up profits?
Trickle-down rules! As long as the guys upstairs are doing well, their crumbs
will slide off the table and be gobbled up by the steadily growing percentile
of those barely getting by.

The
odd thing is we should already be in better times. Corporations are sitting on
vast amounts of cash that could have been invested in expanding the work force
and granting wage and salary increases to those who held on through eight bad
Bush years and the four disastrous ones he left Obama to clean up.

The
real craziness is that, in the midst of all the corporate accumulation,
stockholders have been iced too. Take Apple, the richest company in history
with phenomenal profits and massive cash reserves, they’ve paid out a total of
two dividends in seventeen years – and still offer employee entry pay of $11.81
per hour, all the while off-shoring jobs – and profits - as if Americans had
the plague.

These
omnipotent corporate heads have even managed to subvert good old capitalism.
Ever been to a company annual general meeting? No? Well, you’ll be relieved to
know that stockholders can vote on practically anything - except the
pay-packages of executives.

But
perhaps I’m being insensitive: after all, these plutocrats will need all their
bonuses to re-finance their favorite Super-Pacs, what with the mid-term
elections only 21 months away.

So,
dance to your daddy, you Republican politicians. Obstructionist Tea Party days
are over. The age of ignorance and Sarah Palin are yesterday’s news. The boss
is back! But then he never really went away, did he?

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